Stage 1 Volta Tarragona

Today’s stage was very tough. There were two cat 2 climbs at the beginning and it was supposed to be “flat” for the rest of the stage. My stage pretty much ended on the first climb. I was on a bad day where I just didn’t have much power and was popped off the back of the group. After the first climb I caught two other riders midway up the second climb and someone else was behind us on the road. It was a bit demoralizing going up the second climb because it was winding and I could see the front group rolling it fast at one point. After the climb myself and the other two Spanish riders worked together of the flats, which were up and down these small hills. After about two hours of this the broom wagon was behind telling us we weren’t going to make the time cut. At this point I was dehydrated because we were too far back to get feeds and very tired from all the work I had to do with the two other riders. My race ended. Matt Obregon also ended his race early. He ended up in a crash at the beginning of the first climb and tried to catch back on for two hours also. There was a small group that got off the front towards the end for the stage win. John and the two Sams were in the main group. Nick and Patrick ended up making the third group on the road about seven minutes back from the leaders. Now Matt and I have to ride the courses everyday and get to the finishes before the leaders. We have to leave as soon as we get to the starts, which is roughly an hour and a half to an hour before the starts. This is going to be very tough training because we will be fighting the wind and mountains alone, but this will get us stronger and in better form for the races we have coming when we get back to Belgium.